11.29.17
Posted in Bioterrorism, Crazy Weapons, Culture of Lickspittle, Ricin Kooks at 1:35 pm by George Smith
A chin-scratcher from Vermont:
SHELBURNE, Vt. (WCAX) The FBI is now investigating poison found at a Shelburne assisted-living facility.
Police say they responded Tuesday morning to Wake Robin in Shelburne. That’s when they called the hazmat team.
In a statement, state officials say ricin was found in an apartment…
All areas where the substance was found were evacuated and the FBI is assisting in the investigation. A Wake Robin spokeswoman said all the residents are safe.
The big question for police now– how did the poison get there? And why was it there?
Given my years of experience with the subject, you can still never predict incidences having to do with this particularly unique American fascination.
In only slightly related news, Newsweek reports a Europea “terror chief” warning of ISIS’ potetial use of drones to drop viruses, anthrax, or perhaps ricin.
Bet against. Castor powder is simply not toxic enough. Dispensing small amounts of it in the air would be ineffective. More effective is its use as a psychological weapon because of beliefs on how easy something like this is alleged to be to do.
And, historically, the only terrorist to put anthrax into powder form has been an American from within the biodefense research community — Bruce Ivins.
In addition, there have been no crimes involving the spread of castor powder containing ricin. Although at one time the US had a castor seed milling industry that produced tons of oil and the powder, called castor mash, or pomace.
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11.06.17
Posted in Bioterrorism, Culture of Lickspittle, Ricin Kooks, War On Terror at 3:27 pm by George Smith
Attempted suicide in Texas:
Corpus Christi fire and police responded to a condominium complex in the 14200 block of Whitecap Boulevard at about 8:30 p.m. Monday.
The call was described as a mental health issue with threats of suicide, police Lt. J.C. Hooper said.
Hooper would not disclose the man’s condition on Tuesday.
Fire Capt. James Brown said the man made the mixture by extracting oil from castor beans. He did not know exactly how he made the liquid.
“He somehow constructed ricin on his own,” Brown said. “I’m not sure on the process, but he extracted oil from the beans and ingested it.”
Corpus Christi Medical Center confirmed that a patient suspected of ingesting ricin was admitted to the Bay Area Hospital.
Confusion reigns. If the young man was unable to get castor seeds, just castor oil, there was no ricin. Ricin is present only in the mash of castor seeds. Castor oil, on the other hand, has various uses in human society.
As a laxative is one.
In Derby, England, a video (which I have not seen), connected to an ongoing terrorism trial:
A factory worker contacted a man he believed was an IS commander to pledge allegiance to IS and ask for “an order”, a court has heard.
Munir Mohammed, 36, from Derby, is on trial at the Old Bailey accused of plotting a terror attack using a homemade bomb with Rowaida El-Hassan.
The jury watched a video about making nerve agent ricin that was found at his home and they were told he exchanged messages with Ms El-Hassan about it.
They deny preparing terrorist acts.
Despite one of the accused’s alleged training in pharmacy, the level of expertise was quite low. One suspect was on video purchasing the wrong ingredient for a notional bomb plot:
Asda CCTV footage shows a suspected ‘bomb maker’ buying the wrong type of nail varnish remover for ‘terror attack’ explosives, a court has heard.
Sudanese immigrant Munir Mohammed allegedly enlisted the help of a chemist he met on a dating website in his plot to make explosives or deadly ricin poison …
The court was shown footage of the defendant visiting an Asda store near his home on December 1 last year.
Prosecutor Anne Whyte QC told jurors when Mohammed was in the supermarket, he spoke on the phone to El-Hassan who sent him a link via WhatsApp to a website advertising a bottle of hydrogen peroxide,
Ms Whyte also told the court his till receipt showed he had bought a bottle of Sally Hansen acetone-free nail polish remover.
The prosecution say he saw the word “acetone” and assumed he was buying a component of TATP explosives, when in fact he had bought the wrong product.
Despite being technology enabled — the Internet, WhatsApp — obviously no remedy for fairly obvious goof-ups.
Sixteen years on, the technical knowledge required to make bombs, exotic poisons and WMDs outside of warzones and government labs remains quite low. In inverse proportion to using a rented truck or a guns as murder weapons, so to speak.
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